


Maximum Inconvenience

by drelfina



Series: Sword Spirit AU [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: And other Uchiha have a cameo sometimes, Crack, Founders Era, Gen, Izuna is a Brat, Jubokko, blood sucking swords for shits and giggles, guess what Madara's reputation is, my sense of humour, no one would guess how i solved the war, shinobi being shinobi, sword spirit au, there is also blood, trust me i am very funny, youkai of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-02-23 10:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23543419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drelfina/pseuds/drelfina
Summary: "I like that one," Izuna said."No," Madara said, not looking down."Oh come on," Izuna said, "just a little bit? You can even throw me, I won't mind!""The last time I did," Madara said, through gritted teeth, "you took out my cousin's eye."The Uchiha are haunted.Madara was the next in line.
Relationships: Uchiha Izuna & Uchiha Madara
Series: Sword Spirit AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728838
Comments: 170
Kudos: 151





	Maximum Inconvenience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [evocates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/gifts), [SilverUtahraptor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverUtahraptor/gifts).



> I was thinking about spirit swords like from touken ranbu - the personification of swords, and so on and so forth. 
> 
> Then SilverUtahRaptor made a _suggestion_ and this was _all their fault_. 
> 
> Oh and Evocates helped TREMENDOUSLY so you both are to BLAME. 
> 
> Evocates is a complete enabler of my sense of humour so you guys ALL GET THAT.
> 
> * * *
> 
> https://hanzo.yiff.lol/post/614744413807247360/cutesign-knives-produced-by-japanese-blacksmith
> 
> Look at the Sperm Whale Knife. 
> 
> Then read the fic.

"I like that one," Izuna said. 

"No," Madara said, not looking down. 

"Oh come on," Izuna said, "just a little bit? You can even throw me, I won't mind!" 

"The last time I did," Madara said, through gritted teeth, "you took out my cousin's eye." 

"It was an _accident_ ," Izuna said, and Madara didn't have to look to see his wide-eyed innocent look. Not that he needed to look in any direction, Izuna could choose to be anywhere just because he was hanging off Madara's belt. 

If Madara could have, he'd have thrown the knife into the ocean. But the last time one of the Clan had tried to dispose of the knife, things got... messy in the Clan. And poor Madara had had to retrieve it from the middle of a sheer cliff where Izuna had managed to lodge himself, on a ledge only reachable by goats. 

Or in Madara's case, by his fingernails.

"We don't need more _accidents_ ," Madara said. "This is supposed to be a simple assassination, and that is _not_ the mark." 

"Awww c'mon, he's all alone out here, he's just _asking_ for it," Izuna wheedled. "And if he lost a little blood, it wouldn't alert anyone! You're quick enough right?" 

The problem, Madara thought, was that he _was_. 

He was one of the best shinobi the Uchiha had to offer, so of _course_ he was quick enough. 

"No one's going to notice a little bit of torture on the siiiide," Izuna said. 

" _No._ " 

"You're such a stick in the mud," Izuna complained, "You're fast enough to not raise the alarm, and once you've killed the mark, everyone's going to be dead _anyway_." 

"I'm not," Madara said, "being paid to kill _that_ one." 

"Humans and _money_ ," Izuna huffed, "who cares about the soft yellow metal? Steel's _better_." 

"Gold buys us food," Madara said, and ignored Izuna's muttering about hairless monkeys and squishy food. 

As if Izuna didn't like what was inside the squishy monkeys. 

Izuna was a fucking hypocrite.

* * *

The knife was _technically_ an heirloom. In that it was passed down generation to generation within the Clan, always to another Uchiha, with stern instruction to learn to use it well and safely. 

It didn't just pass through any one family either - Tajima's older sister had inherited it from an uncle somewhat related to the main family three generations ago, and had skipped her children and even Madara's siblings. 

None of his older brothers had done more than touch its handle once, before suddenly it was dropped into Madara's twelve-year-old hands. 

"Lucky you," Kurohito had said, while their Aunt had looked so incredibly relieved. 

Madara had turned the dark steel over, squinting at it. 

It had been a little girl's knife, once, a long time ago, though Madara had no idea whose, nor who had forged it, the name carved into the base of the tail long worn away. It had a blunt rounded tip, shaped like a huge large whale that was only seen in pieces at coastal markets, having been fished up by fishermen on the far edges of Water's small islands. The base of the whale's mouth was the blade, and honestly - 

"This doesn't seem very useful," tiny, stupid, twelve-year-old Madara had said. "Look at how it's so small, it's barely longer than my hand." 

"Who're you calling _small_?" 

And then suddenly something _bit_ Madara's earlobe - for a moment he thought it was teeth, blunt and wet, and then it was just a sharp slice that had Madara _yelp_ , before he realised his hand holding the _knife_ was right up against his face, and it was the _knife_ against his ear - 

"Hi," the knife said, against his jaw, and Madara could _feel_ the smile. 

Kurohito had already run away, and it was just his aunt, looking still as a statue. 

(and yet, yet, so relieved.) 

"I'm Izuna," the knife said. "And you better not call me _small_ again." 

And then there was a tongue against his ear, even as he tried to wrench the knife away. 

"Luckily," Izuna said, "i'm sharp." 

"You'll heal fine," Madara's aunt said. 

"The knife," Madara said, staring at his aunt, even as he felt something - some _one_ lick his fucking _ear_ , "Just _cut me_!" 

"He does that," Madara's Aunt said. "You have to learn to be careful." 

"Tasty," Izuna chirped from beside him. "I knew I chose well!"

* * *

Learning to use the knife - to use _Izuna_ \- was a time and a half. 

Kunai were forged and balanced to be thrown; depending on their size and shape, could be used as darts, or all-rounded knives to scale a sheer stone wall if necessary. 

Izuna was… 

"I can't fucking throw a dinky little _whale knife_ ," Madara yelled, because he had learned how to use all manner of blades that the Clan had forged, but this thing was more suited to cut _paper_ , just from the orientation of the blade. 

Maybe fruit, if he was feeling generous. 

The length of its actual edge was about the span of his longest finger, and while he could sharpen it till it could split skin with a breath, it was still shaped like a _blunt nosed whale_ , more tail than knife. 

"I'm not dinky!" Izuna yelled back, and the knife slipped in Madara's hand, and sliced open his palm. 

"Ow Fucking HELL," Madara said. 

"You need to control your temper," Madara's aunt said, the only one who had used the knife long enough to know how Izuna was. "And you're going to have to learn how to throw it, or else you'll be the one _feeding_ Izuna." 

"Yum," Izuna said. 

One would think that a cute, First Knife like this, something for a little girl to learn how to cut strawberries before starting on actual murder, would be less bloodthirsty than Izuna. 

But. 

Izuna was currently making disappointed faces as Madara's aunt wrapped his palm up. 

Madara shoved the knife into a leather sheath with his uninjured hand, and Izuna vanished. 

"Why must I _use_ him," he grumbled.

"He's the Clan Heirloom," Madara's aunt said, and she didn't even sound particularly apologetic about it. If she had never been anyone who'd cracked a joke the entire time Madara had known her, he'd have said she was fucking bullshitting him. "And he demands blood for his protection." 

"Use him to stab chickens then," Madara said. 

"Stab chickens. With him," Madara's aunt said. "Have you _tried_ stabbing chickens?" 

"It can't be that hard, can it?"

* * *

Stabbing chickens was not a solution. 

First of all, Izuna screamed louder than the chickens. 

Next, the chickens wouldn't stay still, and even when wedged between Madara's knees to try and slit their throats, Izuna refused to orient correctly to slit anything chicken-y. 

"Foul! Gross! Disgusting! I hate you!" Izuna screamed. 

And then the knife slipped and sliced down Madara's thigh. 

Which would have been bad enough, except then the chickens - plural - all attacked Madara's wound.

* * *

Izuna was something of a … knife version of a jubokko, Tajima told Madara eventually. Somewhere along the way after he was first forged, oh, hundreds of years ago, he'd sliced one person too many and woke up. 

"It's not just a spirit shoved into the knife?" Madara asked. 

Tajima gave him a mildly sardonic look. 

"If only it was that simple."

* * *

Jubokko didn't generally care about anyone. They just drank blood. But jubokko were already living _before_ they awoke to youkai state, while Izuna… most definitely was not alive. 

Even if you listened to the smiths talking about living metal and whatever it was, a kunai was a kunai, a tanto was a tanto - there were no real _spirits_ in them. You used kunai and if they broke, you gave them back to the smiths to be reforged, or if they were lost in a fight, that's where they ended. 

Maybe there might be spirits in the ninjato, because more of their smiths' energy and effort went into folding and hammering the metal, meticulous in keeping the whole, longer edge evenly heated, and evenly quenched. Madara himself had witnessed enough young apprentices' cursing when a blade shattered in their hands because of just something a little off in the temperatures. 

But a ninjato having a spirit was better than the idea of _Izuna_ , who was small enough to hang on his belt and weighed next to nothing at all. 

He probably had taken no effort to forge in comparison to a ninjato. 

Perhaps, Madara thought, Izuna's first owner had been a bloodthirsty psycho, and that had transferred over, somehow. 

But the thing about inanimate things having animate spirits was… some sort of contract. This long, Tajima had told him, the knife now not only had a spirit, it had a _name_ , given by one Uchiha owner long ago. 

And the gift of a name was something that no one, not even a dinky little whale knife, could easily forget.

* * *

"A little bit of blood now and then," Izuna said, "it's not too much to ask is it?" 

He sat in his bush, looking down as Madara cursed and swore and finger-climbed his way up the cliff. 

"Shut the fuck up," Madara said.

"And you're a _shinobi_. An _entire_ lifetime of training how to murder people in bloody ways," Izuna continued, while Madara wedged his feet on the precarious tiny foothold he'd managed to find, and thought very strongly of setting the thin scraggly bush on fire. "Just a bit of blood to drink isn't that bad is it?" 

"Why can't you have picked someone else?" Madara snapped. 

"But you're the best one," Izuna said, rocking back and forth. 

For a spirit he was stupidly corporal - the bush was moving too, the thin branches creaking and Madara realised the knife wasn't wedged in amongst the branches. 

No, that would be too easy. It was balanced, belly down, right on a branch-fork, one leaf tucked up under the whale's chin, and a single breath of wind - 

Madara tried to reach out to snag the knife. 

"Whoops," Izuna said, and fell off the branch. 

"For _fuck's_ sake!" Madara yelled, and leapt after Izuna.

* * *

Every one of Izuna's owners - or wielders, really, because who really owned _Izuna_? - had tried to chuck Izuna away, at some point. 

"You're earlier than most," Madara's Aunt said, looking unsurprised when Madara came back way past sunset, his hair soaked in half-dried bloodied mud, grit of various sizes wedged against his scalp and possibly in his pants, Izuna dangling safely from his belt. 

Again. 

"Earlier than most?" Madara gritted out, ignoring Izuna whistling. Unlike _Madara_ , who was starving, Izuna was perfectly satiated, having taken a bite out of Madara's thumb, and the unfortunate Senju who had tried to jump start the next skirmish. 

"I managed to last a whole year before tossing him into the nearest forge," Madara's Aunt said. 

"Hikaku was the one who tried to throw it away," Madara said. 

"And what have you learned about letting your little cousins touch your things?" 

"Don't let them," Madara said, while Izuna burped.

* * *

After he learned how to wield Izuna - which was worse than learning how to use his first kunai, the less said about how many buckets of blood he shed in the process the better - Madara found out what was the really _worst_ thing about being Izuna's wielder. 

"No," Izuna said, and kicked Madara in the shin, as hard as the donkey in old Taki's forge. "NO. How _dare_ you see other blades?!" 

"I have to use kunai _sometime_!" Madara howled as he tried to keep the knife from slipping AND avoiding Izuna's sharp pointed feet. 

"NO!" Izuna screamed at him, and Madara almost sliced his own forearm open as he rolled and dodged. "I'm better than some stupid kunai!" 

Madara's Aunt hummed. "Get used to it, Madara-kun," she said, placidly trying a few moves with something like a war fan chained to a scythe. 

Madara had never seen his aunt wield anything of that sort - he'd thought her specialty had entirely been genjutsu and taijutsu. 

"Tell him, Ishihara!" Izuna growled, and kept kicking Madara until Madara dropped the poor kunai. 

"You better not touch any other bladed weapon if you can help it," Madara's Aunt said, even though there was no way she should be able to hear Izuna now that Madara was the wielder. 

Madara was starting to think her focus on taijutsu had nothing to do with something as mundane as _choice_. 

His attention slipped at a noise his aunt made, and then Madara was choking when Izuna tripped him up and then sat on him. "Don't you dare _see_ any other weapon while you wield _me_ ," Izuna said. 

"Oh, I like this very much," Ishihara said with a small smile. "Reach is a little small, but it's so _nice_ being able to use a ranged weapon again."

* * *

Madara earned the mangekyo two years after he got Izuna, which _fascinated_ Izuna for all of ten seconds until he realised that it meant Madara could kill his targets quickly, easily, and generally from afar. 

"That's not fair," Izuna said, "it's not fair at all! " 

Madara, who was happy to come back from battles _not_ covered in blood because while he had gotten fairly good at throwing Izuna at people with somewhat deadly accuracy, he always had to retrieve him afterwards, shrugged. "Maybe you'll like cooked meat better." 

(the one time he'd tried to leave Izuna behind on a battlefield had not had great consequences for anyone, least of all the poor fucking Hatake who had just been trying to loot bodies.) 

"I do _not_ ," Izuna said with disgust. "Next you'd try to feed me tonkotsu! That's disgusting!" 

And the problem with knife spirits like Izuna, sadly, was that knife spirits didn't _sleep_. 

And two years was enough for Izuna to not require his hand on him _all_ the time to materialize; Izuna was able to pester him for a whole week straight until Madara _begged_ his father to allow him to attack the Senju just so that he could cut someone other than his own hands to feed Izuna.

* * *

"That one is weird," Izuna said, from behind Madara's shoulder as he washed his hands in the river. 

"Who?" Madara said. 

"The one who's coming down to the riverbank." 

Madara looked up from his reflection just in time for him to see a boy about his own age, hair growing out from a stupid looking bowl-cut to almost fall into his eyes. 

"Were you talking to me?" the boy said, blinking huge brown eyes at Madara. 

"Uh," Madara said. 

"Get closer to him," Izuna advised, "Then stab him." 

"No," Madara said. 

"You're so selfish," Izuna grumbled. 

"Oh," the boy said. "Okay. but. Hi? I'm Hashirama." 

"Oh, _Buddhist_ ," Izuna said, making a face in the river's reflection, and Madara ignored him. "Let me get close so i can taste one!" 

"I'm Madara," Madara said because he was definitely not answering Izuna. 

"So now we're friends?" the boy, Hashirama said. 

"Make friends and _then_ stab him," Izuna suggested. 

"We literally only just introduced ourselves," Madara said, "That's not friends." 

"But we _could_ be," Hashirama said, smiling brightly, and it was like the sun came out behind the trees, warm, green, and full of life. 

"Gross," Izuna said, "you're being _mammalian_ now."

* * *

For the gift of his name, Izuna protected the Clan. 

Madara wasn't exactly sure what it meant, his protection, other than that when Hikaku had thrown Izuna off a cliff, things went … wrong. 

Badly. 

Like exploding forges badly. 

The time his aunt Ishihara had thrown Izuna away into a forge, well. 

There was a reason why the house Madara grew up in was brand new. 

"Why can't you just stop the war?" Madara asked. 

"Me, stop a war," Izuna said sitting on a tree branch while Madara cleaned off the knife. The attacker, Madara thought with some sympathy, had moved in too close and too fast for Madara to use Susano'o, which would have been severe overkill in any case, not in the middle of a forest, and not when he was literally just one opportunistic idiot. 

After a certain point, some people were too stupid to live, even if Madara had to bear the laughter when he drew Izuna. 

They generally didn't laugh when Madara gutted them with the tiny whale knife. 

"Yeah," Madara said, and stepped over the body as he sheathed the knife. Izuna kicked his sandals against the tree branch. 

"You want _me_ to stop a war," Izuna said. "What do you think I am, a _God_?" 

"You're powerful enough to set fire to our Clan," Madara said. "Why can't you stop the war?" 

Izuna laughed. "Go find some kitsune to make _that_ happen." 

He hopped down to land next to Madara, crouching by the body and pushed his hand into the bloody gash in the abdomen. "I," he said, and his smile was as bright as the edge of his knife. " _like_ war." 

Izuna, Madara thought, was spectacularly unhelpful. 

"This guy tastes like seaweed," Izuna said. 

"Serves you right for chewing on a guy from Water Country," Madara said unsympathetically. 

"Hmph," Izuna said, but at least he was too busy being pleased by Madara's prior mission and this guy now, to do more than bitch a little. 

War, Madara thought. Kitsune. 

Hm.

* * *

When he fought against Hashirama in their battles, he didn't use Izuna, no matter how much the knife sulked about it. 

Hashirama was a _friend_. 

And besides, what could a little knife do against the _mokuton_? 

Tajima hadn't even chastised him for not trying to stab Hashirama, just nodded when he'd laid out his reasons for anything but. 

Izuna hadn't even liked the taste of a mokuton branch the first time anyway, so honestly he shouldn't be complaining.

But he didn't like it, this having to constantly fight against Hashirama, because of the way genjutsu didn't seem to help against Hashirama, and taijutsu meant he had to be really _really_ close, and Hashirama, for all his stupid haircut down the river, had a mokuton so robust most of Madara's ninjutsu were only enough to fight him to stand-still. 

A little knife would slide through the branches, but Madara didn't _want_ to.

* * *

He saw the fox by accident. 

It shouldn't have been a surprise. 

They were the land of _Fire_ after all, and Madara was from a Clan that specialized in fire jutsu. 

(and metal smithing. And also being haunted by a fucking tiny knife, but no one else really needed to know that.) 

The Fox was on fire, and it had nine-tails. 

And - 

"Just because I said _kitsune_ didn't mean go _find_ one," Izuna said, as Madara pulled Izuna out. "Oh fuck oh FUCK what are you -" 

"Go talk to the fox," Madara said. "He'd listen to you, right?" 

"That is _not what I meant_!" Izuna yelled, but Madara had very good aim with Izuna by now.

* * *

So apparently the kyuubi's flame was enough to get Izuna fast-talking. Madara wasn't entirely sure what they _said_ , because after a certain point, they kind of devolved into yelling in what Madara generously decided to call 'spirit language' and not 'throwing fire at each other'. 

Both of them were, by some very generous measures, 'fire spirits', if you judged by what Izuna tended to do when he was unhappy about the lack of blood, so he sat back (very far back) and waited, until the kyuubi lumbered up to him and spat Izuna onto Madara. 

"If it'd mean this little piece of scrap metal will leave me alone for another thousand years," the Kyuubi growled at Madara, "I'll force your pathetic human enemies into 'peace'." 

"Thank you," Madara said. "Wait. _Another_ thousand years?" 

But the kyuubi had disappeared off in the direction of the Senju territory. 

Ah well, Madara thought. 

"He messed my hair," Izuna said, fussing with his stupid ponytail. 

"You don't have any," Madara said.

* * *

"Please accept this as a symbol of our sincere adherence to the ideal of peace," Senju Butsuma said. 

The Senju all, Madara thought, looked a little shell shocked to be standing here, over the river between their territories.

To be honest, so did the Uchiha, but they had a little more warning since Madara ran back ahead and told his father about what Izuna had done. 

And honestly, when Izuna got what he wanted, there was peace and quiet in the Clan, so _everyone_ was perfectly on board with whatever weird treaty or agreement Izuna had hashed out with the kyuubi. 

They were youkai and spirits and basically gods. If they decreed there be peace, there was going to be goddamn peace. 

"We… accept," Tajima said, as Hashirama held up a huge ornate sword that was almost as long as he was tall. 

Its sheath was a pale, almost-white wood, and the gold fittings worn almost silver from age. But the thick luxurious tassel hanging from its kashira-gane was bright and new, blue like the river reflecting a cloudless sky, and matched the silk cord that wrapped the hilt. It was a huge long thing that some daimyo probably used to cut down mounted men, probably, in some mythical legend, but also clearly too delicate, rare and ornate to be anything but ceremonial. Just the thought of how much _work_ had to have gone into making a blade that long made Madara's mind hurt. 

The Senju's own ceremonial sword, the answer to the decorative tessen that Tajima was having Madara hand over in exchange to Butsuma. 

"I don't like this," Izuna said. 

"Shut up," Madara said out of the corner of his mouth, as Tajima carefully passed the Senju's odachi to Madara. 

"I really don't like the look of this -" 

"I told you, earlier," Madara said, "This is ceremonial, and I'm not _seeing_ another blade other than you." 

"Which is good," said a new, _different_ voice, "because i have no intention of seeing _you_." 

Madara blinked. 

A cross looking pale young man stood in front of him, the long sleeves of his kimono in the exact same shade of blue of the odachi's hilt's wrapping. His long white hair was the same shade as the sheath, and Madara was getting a very, very bad feeling about this. 

"You fucking Odachi," Izuna snarled, "Madara is _mine_!" 

"It was forged by Chiyotsuru Kuniyasu three hundred years ago," Butsuma was saying, "and named for the recipient's son, Tobirama." 

"We would treat your ancestor's sword with the utmost respect," Tajima said, while absolutely no one said anything about the weird look Butsuma and Hashirama were giving Madara. 

"You're _younger_ than me," Izuna said. "Get lost!" 

"Age," Tobirama said as his bright red eyes narrowed, and started to glow, "has nothing to do with _ability_."

Madara chucked the odachi at the nearest _not him_ Uchiha before he had to fight a goddamn Odachi with a dinky whale knife, and high tailed it out of there, ignoring the insulted cries from the Senju. 

"Hey!" Kagami cried out as he got brained by a sword that was definitely taller than him. "What on - oh Ancestors who the _hell_ are you?!" 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Ishihara: the name comes from the same mountain range as Tajima does. :) Very suitable, I thought. 
> 
> Madara never gets to wield another blade while he has Izuna. 
> 
> He gets known as
> 
> Madara of the Dinky Whale Knife. 
> 
> You're all welcome.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Tobirama the odachi actually looks a little like THIS in my brain: 
> 
> ~~https://touken-ranbu.fandom.com/wiki/Jiroutachi?file=Jiroutachi-Kiwame1.png except with his long white hair and unimpressed expression.~~ SPOILERS I changed my mind: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/touken-ranbu/images/d/df/Taroutachi-Kiwame1.png/revision/latest?cb=20181214101443 ie Taroutachi is the better option and even has the right pissed off expression. 
> 
> https://touken-ranbu.fandom.com/wiki/Taroutachi/Gallery?file=Taroutachi-Kiwame1.png click here for his gallery. :D
> 
> izuna looks like Izuna. :D
> 
> * * *
> 
> ~~Also yes, any guesses as to WHO had a) murdered a hella bunch of people with a DINKY WHALE KNIFE, enough to awaken it, and b) Named it? because Madara has WORDS for that Uchiha once he gets to the afterlife. SO. Many. Words.~~


End file.
